Language and Violence in the context of Defamation Against Women

">rn Abstract rn Gaining importance, violence is a personal, societal and social problem that is progressively receiving more media coverage. The violence particularly faced by women, be it domestic or social one, through utterances, expressions and language use is unfortunately at the heart of life. These actions which are apparently against the women but have also an impact on the society alienate the family members from each other, impeding psychological and social life, and thus, inflict a deep wound in society as the family is the first social environment where the feelings are expressed. In particular, “verbal abuse” that is different from “physical abuse” never skips anybody it reaches. Such attitude and behaviours casting supporting roles to supplement men through intimidating women and destroying their independent characters result in women getting used to the incidents and coming to terms with the defamation which is in fact a crime. Right at this point, this study aims to examine the place of language and verbal attitude in such behaviours that suppress women and increase the risk of violence, in context of the defamation laws governed in Turkish Criminal Law. rn rn